Events

Performed in Trowbridge Town Hall on the 10th November 2017, Parlour Tricks was a magic/comedy show starring the time travelling magicians Rhys Morgan and Robert West. The pair met when they studied together at Oxford in the late nineteenth century and discovered a shared love of deception. Since then, Morgan and West have grown increasingly popular and have appeared on the modern day television shows The Slammer, The Next Great Magician and Penn and Teller: Fool Us (they fooled them). When they teleported themselves (and their drawing room) from the past to perform their shenanigans before a Trowbridge audience, it was no surprise that the show was a sell-out.

To the Flame the Moth Said: Review‘Four characters find themselves immersed in darkness, Inside them a whisper calls; And to the flame they go.’

The premiere of To the Flame the Moth Said was performed as part of Trowbridge Arts celebration of dance. It was an especially important event as it marked a return to her roots for Amy Foskett, head of Amy Foskett Dance. Amy originally began her career in Trowbridge’s Arc Theatre as a teenager before taking her training further in Swindon. She gained her BA at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, where she now lives and works, specialising in classical ballet, contemporary dance and dance theatre. For her visit, Amy was joined by dancers Hazel Firth, Jennifer Robinson and Brita Grov, all of whom are based in London.

A brand new season of films from around the world will be screened in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, from September 2017 to January 2018. The idea is to offer the opportunity to locals and people from different communities living in the town to get together and learn more about each other’s traditions by watching and then sharing ideas about a movie, sometimes including some food, other with Q&A with the directors or special speakers.

There will be a total of four screenings -one per month- on Saturdays at 2pm at Town Hall Arts, Trowbridge with adult tickets only £5 and £3 for under 16 years old. These charges are to cover the cost of film licenses and professional projection equipment.

We’d like to thank all the artists for submitting work to the first open exhibition at Town Hall Arts. The response from the public has been incredible due to the high standard and variety of work.

We would also like to thank the people who came to see the exhibition and voted for their favourite piece of work as part of the People's Choice Prize. The winning piece as voted by the public was ‘Mani’ by Tanya Hinton (pictured below) – Congratulations!

We would like to extend our thanks to Stephanie Bell of BBC Radio Wiltshire who came to join us for the morning to find out what the Artists’ Café is all about and how it benefits our artists. She heard from several of our artists about what it means to them. She also managed to catch up with artist Cath Bloomfield who is one of the Somerset Printmakers whose work is the current exhibition in our main Gallery. Print Plus runs until Saturday 24 June - For more information click here.

The Artist Café piece goes live on the radio today, June 7, at 15:10 here if you can’t hear it live it will be available on listen again here. There will also be a piece about our Cells which is due to air next Thursday, June 15, at 14:10.

Ian Lacy from CIC Love from the Artist came to let us know about how to get art cards and other print-on-demand services at a price that artists can afford, 40p per card and a minimum run of only ten cards. This enables artists to make a profit from their artwork reproductions. He left some samples and brochures with us so please do pop in if you want one of these. The artists’ site to find out more is here http://lovefromtheartist.org/ and the commercial site is here https://www.lovefromtheartist.com/

Patrick Hallissey shared information about an upcoming exhibition of work by Barbara Rae coming to the Adam Gallery in Bath ‘Postcards from the Artist’ more details here.

Patrick also mentioned an art auction that is being organised by Trowbridge Museum on Friday 8th September. There will be a silent auction to raise the profile of, and fundraise for, the Museum’s expansion project. The Museum is looking for artists to donate work, and you can get in touch with them here.

After the Artists Café we also went to see the exhibition of Michael Pennie’s work Drawings of Different Sizes at Drawing Projects UK, Bridge House. The exhibition was curated by Town Hall Arts curator Fiona Cassidy. Michael was kind enough to talk to us about the exhibition and his drawing practice. It runs until Saturday 10 June. Opening hours are Sat and Sun 10am-4pm and other days by appointment. Visit their website.

Finally our Open exhibition deadline is extended until the 8 June at 5pm – so there is still time to submit work. Prizes include a chance to exhibit your work at the Town Hall Arts next year. Click here for more information.

Next month’s Artist Café will be Thursday 6 July 10.30-12, and then we will take a break in August.

On Saturday 22nd April, Trowbridge Arts hosted a Horror Convention at Trowbridge Town Hall. It was the perfect "gothic" venue for this fabulously good fun event and everyone who braved the "scare tours" commented on the quality of the fright they received. I just saw smiles and laughter all day, local people pleasantly surprised by the fun and excitement on offer throughout the day and into the evening.

It was all so varied. Apart from the fabulous scare tours which took place in the old court room and the cells in the basement, there were costume and mask exhibitors along with live snake and spiders to see and touch. A virtual reality machine was available to try out along with quality costume and prop making clubs. Milton Keynes Garrison were showing their spectacular costuming by prowling the streets of Trowbridge to great delight as well as scaring the people inside the Town Hall with their realistic costumes and characterisations. Everyone, public and exhibitors alike had a great time and the atmosphere was super friendly, the scare tours were consistently commented on with people remarking on the quality and how they were well worth the money.

I really enjoyed my time at the Horror Con and can't wait for the next one, it was such a perfect venue and this exciting, unpretentious event was a great success. Sarah Johnston, Westbury.

Recently reconnecting with her childhood haunts in South Africa, Alice has captured the essence of this wild, untamed landscape with its ever-changing light and enabling space to inhale the expanse and contemplate the Infinite.

Those acquainted with the worlds smallest floral kingdom, the Cape, will find memories stirred of Atlantic swells making landfall, verdant fynbos and the otherworldly intensity of the African palette. For those yet to visit, this is a tantalising preview. Sir Francis Drake rounded the Cape on his voyage round the world and called it "a most stately thing and the fairest Cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth"

Alice will also be painting all week and welcomes the chance to talk to others who love colour.

Turning a story from the past into a play for the present at Trowbridge Town Hall

This month's guest blog is written by Lizzie Crarer:

2017 has had a bit of a rocky start. The events in America over the past few weeks are a challenge to the liberal values that many of us have hitherto taken for granted, raising questions about political resistance, and what this looks like in today’s world.

In this context, I have been lucky enough to spend the past 2 weeks at Trowbridge Town Hall with a group of 5 other theatre artists, exploring a story of politics, protest – and, ultimately, hope.

Rosa ‘May’ Billinghurst was a young woman at the turn of the 20th Century who grew up in London, conscious of the massive social injustice that was the legacy of the industrial revolution. Increasingly frustrated at her inability to create political change, and with a government that evaded the issue of the women’s vote, she turned to the suffragette movement. She rose quickly through the ranks of the Women’s Social and Political Union, becoming a key member of the organization. She engaged in direct action, she spoke at rallies alongside WSPU leader Emmeline Pankhurst, and she endured prison sentences and the horror of force-feeding. She was funny, ascerbic and passionate, with a loving and unusually liberal family. She was also wheelchair-user.